Yes, I know that it’s no longer Christmas anywhere until next year, but I still want to share with you Alan Jackson’s Let It Be Christmas Everywhere:

Here’s the story behind my sharing that video: My daughter loves Christmas carols, so she’s been taking advantage of Christmas playlists. We’ve listened endlessly to “Winter Wonderland,” “White Christmas,” “Sleigh Ride,” and all the pop song Christmas classics. None of the playlists offered “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Finally, having heard Andy Williams and even Nat King Cole once too often, I said, “Let’s listen to a Country Music playlist.” We did and discovered two things:

1. The above Alan Jackson song, which neither of us had ever heard before. (To be honest, neither of us had ever heard of Alan Jackson before.) We were completely charmed by the song. I realized that part of its charm is that it’s a waltz. There’s something invariably charming about waltzes, from Strauss, to Tchaikovsky, to Richard Rogers, to Alan Jackson. American pop music has no room for waltzes. America’s modern “high” art “classic” music has no room for waltzes. County Music, however, still makes room for that lovely, lilting rhythm.

2. You can still hear “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on County Music playlists. Apparently Country Music fans are smart enough to realize that it’s a romantic flirtation song and that there’s nothing “rapey” about it.

My Christmas was nice. I’m now focused like a laser on the new year. I have very high expectations for the new year — including a hope that my most devout wish for the past many years will come true; namely, the total destruction of the UN. In that regard, you cannot do better than to read Daniel Greenfield’s strong essay explaining why we shouldn’t just stop funding the UN but should withdraw from it entirely: [Read more…]